The EU Carbon Removal Certification Framework intends to drive forward technological and natural carbon removals, and prevent greenwashing through robust standards and certification procedures. Itâs to deal with the existing poorly monitored carbon removals market: the lack of oversight, transparency, trustworthiness, and genuine climate impact (additionality) of projects and certificates. Simon Göss at carboneer looks at the current proposals, … [Read more...]
CO2 emissions from Land Use: country-level data for turning âemittersâ into âsinksâ
Until carbon capture technologies take off (if at all!), the worldâs CO2 removals depend entirely on nature. Clemens Schwingshackl, Wolfgang Obermeier and Julia Pongratz at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, writing for Carbon Brief, review the latest data on âcarbon fluxesâ which measure whether the land is a net âsourceâ of carbon or a âsink.â Flux measurements are categorised: deforestation, forestation, wood-harvest emissions, removals … [Read more...]
IEAâs new CCUS projects database: a tool for driving much needed progress
The IEA has made available for the first time its CCUS projects database. The number of countries with plans to develop CCUS now stands at 45, with seven more countries - in central and southern Europe, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia â joining the list in 2022. The database covers CO2 capture, transport, storage, and utilisation projects worldwide commissioned since the 1970s, and have an announced capacity of more than 100,000âŻtonnes/year … [Read more...]
Embodied Carbon Emissions: understanding the different methodologies being used around the world
The measurement of the embodied carbon emissions of goods tells us what greenhouse gas emissions are generated during the production and transportation of those goods. This achieves two main things. Firstly, it allows producers to understand where their emissions are coming from, and so reduce them. Secondly, it opens the door to putting a price on those emissions, thus incentivising producers to reduce them. But, as Max Gruenig at E3G explains, … [Read more...]
Modelling green Ammonia and Methanol in 2050. It will be expensive
Schalk Cloete starts by explaining that it is unrealistic to expect clean electrification to carry the main burden of energy supply. Even a fast roll out will be constrained by a range of infrastructure and cost limitations. Hence our continued dependence on fuels, with their high energy density and ease of transport. Those fuels will have to be made clean, so he summarises his co-authored papers that model the cost of green and blue ammonia and … [Read more...]
Clean Turquoise Hydrogen: a pathway to commercial readiness
Whereas blue hydrogen from methane produces CO2, the by-product of turquoise hydrogen is pure carbon. The obvious advantage is you can make your hydrogen without the need for expensive new infrastructure to transport and store any CO2. Turquoise hydrogen is only at the start-up phase, so Schalk Cloete summarises his co-authored paper that looks at various scenarios to estimate the cost of producing the hydrogen (using molten salt pyrolysis) and, … [Read more...]
46% of Buildings âEmbodied Carbonâ can be slashed at little to no cost
Buildings and their construction account for around 40% of all carbon emissions today. Half those emissions come from the construction alone, so buildings successfully powered by clean energy wonât come close to fixing the whole problem. John Matson and Rebecca Esau at RMI describe how industry leaders are creating the tools to measure and gather data on the âembodied carbonâ in building materials (concrete, rebar, glazing, insulation, other … [Read more...]
Worldâs biggest Carbon Capture project: Shute Creekâs âsell or ventâ business model isnât working
ExxonMobilâs Shute Creek CCUS facility is the worldâs largest carbon capture project. But since its launch in the 1980s half of that CO2 has been vented into the atmosphere, with most of the rest sold for pumping it underground to push out more oil from depleted wells (called Enhanced Oil Recovery). Only 3% has been sequestered underground, explain Bruce Robertson and Milad Mousavian at IEEFA, following their study based on publicly available … [Read more...]
Imagine itâs 2030 and net-zero is on track. How did we do it?
Imagine itâs 2030. The energy transition is on track and net-zero goals are entrenched across the global economy. How did we get there? Tim Buckley at IEEFA imagines it for us and sends us a postcard from the future. Writing in the past tense, he flags actual events and policies happening today to ârememberâ the major changes that took place to achieve it. Weather-related disasters compelled governments to act, recognising â apart from the … [Read more...]
Can Carbon Offset loopholes be fixed with better evaluation and rules?
Carbon offset programmes rightly get a lot of criticism. Thereâs plenty of evidence of offsets not delivering all the GHG emissions reductions they are credited for. Though still on the international agenda, should they be ditched? Or can they be improved with better analysis and evaluation, and making that a pre-condition for creating carbon offset credits, asks Meredith Fowlie at the Energy Institute at Haas. She starts by looking at those … [Read more...]
Renewed interest in Carbon Capture strategies for net-zero: targets, obstacles, costs, priorities
Martina Lyons at IRENA picks out the highlights of their new report âReaching Zero with Renewables: Capturing Carbonâ. Carbon capture is going to be expensive, so should be focussed on hard-to-abate industrial sectors, as well as bioenergy plants. Lyons breaks down the target carbon capture volumes, costs and the investments required, as well as looking at the consequences of different strategies and carbon prices. Scaling up this technology, … [Read more...]
Climate Finance: the loopholes that are causing greenwashing
How do you know when an investment is truly âgreenâ? Whether companies and fund managers monitor themselves or are externally policed, the correct rules need to be identified. And then it gets harder. Clearly defining and then measuring carbon footprints is a bigger challenge, explains Meredith Fowlie at UC Berkeleyâs Energy Institute at Haas. She draws parallels with food nutrition labelling rules. But whereas counting the calories in a food … [Read more...]
Will COP26 set right the booming Carbon Offset Market
Carbon offsetting is when a company, rather than cut its own emissions, pays someone else somewhere else to cut their emissions. It has always been controversial because it has two main problems. Buying carbon credits means you arenât putting the effort in to cut emissions yourself. And the risk of double-counting: when the company reports it has cut emissions, and so does the âsomeone elseâ. A third problem exists too: measuring whether the … [Read more...]
Only Carbon Removal can make Germanyâs new climate goal a reality
Germany canât hit its emissions targets without significant carbon dioxide removal (CRD), explain Simon Göss and Hendrik Schuldt at cr.hub. Clean energy and energy efficiency wonât do it alone. Policymakers have grasped that hard-to-abate sectors (industry, agriculture, buildings, transport) will struggle to deliver the reductions needed. Meanwhile, the climate disasters (floods, wildfires, etc.) that have cost lives this year are piling on … [Read more...]
What if Carbon Capture fails? Modelling the consequences and solutions
Most policy scenarios being used by governments include carbon capture as a vital tool to reduce emissions. Though itâs far from proven at scale, models assume that between 2030 and 2050 carbon dioxide removal (CDR) will get its act together and deliver on its part in the net-zero puzzle. Assuming that will happen, burning fossil fuels can continue for longer. But Neil Grant and Ajay Gambhir at Imperial College London, writing for Carbon Brief, … [Read more...]
